Abstract

Companies across the United States are in the process of selecting those members of management who will be their applicants for the coming semester's university executive education programs. Within a few weeks, faculty committees will review these applications and make theft decisions as to which executives will comprise their forthcoming program classes. With the completion of this selection process, another chapter will begin unfolding in what many consider one of the most significant educational developments of the century. The acceptance and use of university programs as a part of company development for practicing administrators has been both sudden and dramatic. When one considers that the first university effort was the Sloan Fellowship Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981, that the second was inaugurated at Harvard in 1943, and that the majority of other university efforts existing today were started during the 1950s, the recent origin and rapid development of the movement become apparent.